It was springtime: a season of dreams, blinding optimism, and randy young recruits going at it anywhere they could.

All of it made sense, in a natural instincts sort of way. The war had been going well. Not spectacularly, every day was still a life or death struggle, but the tides had turned in their favor. Finally.

For the first time, the Rebellion had a chance to breathe. To look to the future and for once allow themselves to hope that it will be bright.

That kind of mindset lead to people wanting to celebrate being alive. Which lead them to… well, Cassian was getting a little tired of the barracks' rear-facing security cameras being vandalized. Or walking into a storage room and being ambushed by a flying, half-naked couple who streak away before he can catch their names and reprimand them.

"They wanted to practice formations by the lake."

Cassian scoots over to the side to give Jyn a place to lean next to him on the railing. Their new base is not as hidden as he would have preferred it to be, but it did offer spectacular views of the nearby mountains. Especially up here from the top viewpoint tower.

Maybe that was the problem. All that fresh mountain air.

"You sure that's a good idea?" he asks, waving away her offer of sharing whatever healthy green concoction she was drinking.

She shrugs, sipping at it and wrinkling her nose slightly.

"Probably not. If we're lucky, they're all just going to slack off and go swimming instead."

"If we're lucky."

They share a mutual sidelong look, full of significance and bemusement. Jyn cracks up first, snorting into her drink and wiping the green froth from her lip with the back of her hand.

He watches her for a moment before clearing his throat and looking away again.

"It's nice up here," he says, gesturing to the spectacular scenery surrounding them. "Maybe not the best spot for tactical reasons, but it puts everyone in a good mindset."

"Obviously."

He looks down at his hand, pushes his cuticles back, and ignores how her back curves as she leans over the edge, resting her elbows on the top of the railing.

"Tomorrow I think I'm going to start rounding up crew for a supply run," she says, looking out across the hills and field.

In the distance are the black, stickfigure shapes of their recruits clustered by the edge of the water. Cassian watches as she squints and her lips move silently, counting to make sure that the correct number is accounted for.

"Shouldn't be a problem. We've pretty much cleared the drop zone. Maybe take some of the greenhorns with you and let them feel important for a few hours."

Jyn huffs in agreement. He looks up to her scowling into her drink and setting it aside. Either it just tastes that bad or the headcount was two too short.

"Last shipment was late. We should call it in just to be sure."

Since she's not looking at him, he can risk looking at her. In the bright afternoon light she looks radiant. He'd always assumed that her eyes were green, but from certain angles they're more of a hazel.

"Hmm?"

She catches him staring. They both look forward again, shifting their weight or shuffling their feet.

"The, um, the shipment."

The back of his head itches. He scratches it absently, noticing how a stray lock of her hair has come loose from the mild wind.

"Right. Yes. I'll do that." She jumps slightly when he reaches out and tucks it behind her ear. Presses her lips together into a tight line. For a moment he wonders if she's annoyed, but then he sees the faint hue on her cheeks.

"It must be the season," he comments. She furrows her brow, relaxing again her mouth but not following his unspoken previous line of thought.

Jyn doesn't have freckles. Not plural. But she does have one single one, high up on the side of her cheek below her eye. He'd never noticed that before.

She opens her mouth to speak. Her tongue darts out to wet her lower lip and he looks away again because maybe he was making her uncomfortable or in the very least was staring just to damned hard.

Whatever she was going to say fades.

Then the wind shifts again, blowing now from the side. It makes her subconsciously shift toward him.

He turns his chest to face her, letting his back be a windbreak so she doesn't have to leave and go get a jacket.

A silence stretches between them. Part of him thinks to try and fill it with conversation. There's always something to plan or strategize or improve on. But… she's smiling slightly. Still not looking at him – in fact looking up at the sky with her chin tipped back – and it shows how pretty her neck is.

Jyn is out of her standard uniform. He'd been too preoccupied with keeping her in his peripheral vision to notice at first. Now she's in a casual and practical sort of outfit, not that she would ever wear anything else, but with just a little more skin showing than he's seen before.

She straightens up then. Cracking her back first in each direction, then raising her half-bare arms over her head with a deliberate arch to her spine.

That… almost looked like it might have been on purpose.

Or it may have all been in his head. Somebody really should bottle this mountain air. Or maybe it's something about this planet itself. Or maybe it's just her.

Then she goes back to leaning against the railing. This time bending over just a touch deeper than she had before.

"Cassian?"

She's still not looking at him when she asks him. Gazing out at the lake and the distant bodies who are now so clearly in the water instead of on the edge of it where they should be.

He makes a hum of acknowledgement. Taking the risk of following the curve of her spine down to the small of her back. Her shirt has ridden up slightly, exposing a crescent of pale skin.

"Sometimes I wonder what's going to happen if we actually win. We've all grown up like this, no one will know what to do with themselves."

His fingers itch to reach out. To wrap around the far side of her small waist and pull her closer to him. He fights it off with a huff. Angles himself closer so he can speak in a lower tone like her serious question deserves.

"It will be alright. Somehow," he tells her.

She looks up at him, warm skepticism in her eyes at his blind reassurances.

"You sound confident." This time she doesn't look away again. He swallows and damned if her gaze doesn't flicker down to follow the movement in his throat before looking back up again.

"I am," he says. "We can take on anything. We already have. Anything is possible as long as we-"

She licks her lips a second time. It's a simple, innocent, and easy to miss movement and his voice suddenly forgets how to work. She smiles. That… that was intentional, wasn't it?

"As long as we what?" she asks, smile widening and all he can see is the shine on her bottom lip and the hint of teeth behind it.

"Stick together."

He leans forward, testing how far he can toe the line. She bites her lower lip and holds her ground. He watches at the rosy flesh indents then pops back when she lets it go.

"Stick together?"

They're close enough now that he can feel her breath on his face. It smells like vitamin-infused grass or whatever the hell it was that she had been drinking.

"Yeah. That's what I was saying."

He doesn't even know what he was saying. Not when he puts a hand on her shoulder to turn her slightly and she doesn't shake it off.

When they're standing this close, she has to raise her chin up so she can meet his eyes. That works for him too.

"Good idea."

She holds still, not meeting him halfway but giving him a raised eyebrow that clearly is issuing a challenge.

He dips down closer, waiting for her to pull away. She doesn't. Her smile grows, though, and he can't help but think about the precedent he's setting by letting her have her way while he does all the work.

Fine. No risk, no reward.

He pulls her that final bit closer and closes his eyes. Allowing her to win their unspoken faceoff if it means he finally gets to kiss her.

She's gracious in victory, at least. Sighing into his mouth before curling herself into his chest. Tugging on his jacket while their lips work together and his own hands can finally wrap around her waist.

And a round of cheers and applause interrupts them.

Jyn goes wide-eyed, freezing up in his arms. Cassian pulls back just enough to stiffly turn his head.

Two of the recruits who were supposed to be by the water are watching them. Laughing and cheering and one of them even has his communicator out and Cassian swears that if he's texting about this or took a photo of them-

"What are you two doing here?" Jyn demands, voice much higher and tighter than it normally is.

She pushes at his chest and they snap apart from each other like matching sides of a magnet.

"Came back for supplies," the taller one with the communicator says, wisely tucking it into his uniform's pocket before Cassian seizes it as contraband. "What are you two doing out here?"

Cassian grips the edge of the balcony. Resiting the urge to assign them toilet duty for a month even though they hadn't technically done anything wrong.

Jyn looks up at him then back.

"Discussing… strategy," she offers weakly. "The plans for our next mission."

The first recruit, the other one who hadn't said anything yet, immediately cracks up.

"Well damn," he says, openly oggling his superior officer. "Sign me up for that, looks like it's going to be a great run."

Cassian immediately straightens himself, falling back into the rigid stance he always adopts when he's uncomfortable

"Graveyard watch duty, both of you," he snaps. "For a whole week."

Their knowing smirks immediately fall.

"But… we didn't even-"

"I'd stop talking now, if I were you," Jyn interrupts. "You two should have been training by the lake. If you needed more supplies, go through the proper channels."

Because, in all honesty, they had probably actually just come back here to boink. Possibly even with each other.

They both look like they want to argue the point. But then they wisely think better of it. Give a half-hearted salute and shuffle off.

Jyn sighs when they leave, slumping against the railing and rolling her head to the sky.

Yeah, that pretty much killed the mood, didn't it?

"You may have been a little harsh on them, don't you think?" she asks, eyebrows drawn together in annoyance at the world.

"I'm pretty sure they were filming us."

Her jaw drops. He stares at her too-pretty mouth for a moment before catching himself.

"They were… No! I'm going to kill him! Which one was it?"

Cassian shrugs, watching as she all but throws herself away from the railing and starts stomping down off the platform.

"The tall one," he calls out to her. "Check the front pocket of his jacket."

Unless he's already texted it to everyone he knows. Which he probably has.

But that's not going to change a thing because, Spring's raging hormones aside, he's still going to enforce proper decorum with his squadron. Now he'll just have to be a hypocrite about it.

Author's Note:

Okay, I've written a whole lot of serious sleaze in the past so it's not easy trying to figure out subtle romance. Less is more. Focus on the body language. Meaningful stares. Yep yep yep. Actually the movie itself gave me a pretty good template to work from, now that I think about it...